The Alternative Number Ones: Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life”

May 24, 1997STAYED AT #1:8 WeeksIn The Alternative Number Ones, I’m reviewing every #1 single in the history of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks/Alternative Songs, starting with the moment that the chart launched in 1988. This column is a companion piece to The Number Ones. The column is now biweekly, alternating with The Number Ones on Mondays. Our bosses at the summer camp wanted us to stop playing rap at the dances. That was the message, anyway. Maybe they didn't feel like they could say that they didn't want us playing rap at the dances, but there was a whole meeting about songs with "questionable lyrical content" or some such thing.I was 17 years old in summer 1997, and I spent those months working at a residential camp for people with disabilities. Once every week or two, we'd have a dance in the dining hall — tables pushed up against the wall, wheelchairs twirling around to whatever CDs the counselors played on a big boombox. One counselor would volunteer to DJ, playing whatever songs were popular that summer, which mostly meant Bad Boy Records stuff, as well as "Lovefool" and "Return Of The Mack" and "Men In Black."When our bosses told us to stop playing rap, there was an a...